Al White

Career

On screen, White is perhaps best known for his role in hit comedy Airplane! as the jive-talking man whose words have to be translated (he reprised the jive-talking for a courtroom scene in the sequel). He also acted in Back to the Future Part II and has a long television resume, including roles in popular shows Wonder Woman, The Jeffersons. The Incredible Hulk and The Dukes of Hazzard, and more recently CSI: Miami and The King of Queens.

White, who was raised in San Francisco, California from an early age, decided to embark on an acting career after he had been employed as a janitor in the Golden Gate Park for eight years. White has won a number of awards for his theatre work. He later became a member of the American Conservatory Theater company for three years, performing in more than seventeen plays from Shakespeare to playwright Tennessee Williams, who was playwright in residence at the time. White originated the role of the military officer in Williams' play This Is An Entertainment. In 1976, the group was sent to the Soviet Union for a bicentennial cultural exchange, performing at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, as well as in Leningrad and Rega.